I heard that, just to spite the Flyers, Chris Pronger is going to dress up in his Blues duds and skate a few shifts tonight. That's the scuttlebutt. Today is also the first day of April. That's the scuttlebutt.

I'm bringing back the word scuttlebutt to the people. That's the scuttlebutt.

FLYERS (39-27-8) at BLUES (50-17-7)

TV: NBCSN, TSN2, CSN-PH

Last 10: Philadelphia 6-3-1; St. Louis 6-3-1

Season series: It's the second and final regular-season game between the Philadelphia Flyers and St. Louis Blues. On March 22, Scott Hartnell, Wayne Simmonds and Jakub Voracek each had a goal and an assist to lead the Flyers to a 4-1 win in Philadelphia.

Big story: Despite leading the Western Conference in points, Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said he hasn't been satisfied with his team's effort the last few games.

"What I'm troubled by that I'd like to see changed is we're in the 40-50 minute range for hockey, not the 60-minute," Hitchcock said Monday. "We were great against Toronto [a 5-3 Blues win March 25], went to sleep for 10 minutes, game on. We were asleep for 10 minutes against Minnesota [a 5-1 Blues win March 27] and then game on. You all know what the playoffs are like; you can't sleep for 10 minutes. It's game over, not game on."

The Flyers continue their rough ride through the season. It will be their eighth game in the past 10 against teams currently holding spots in the Stanley Cup Playoffs; the other two are against teams within two points of a spot in the Dallas Stars and Toronto Maple Leafs. Rather than dwell on the difficult schedule, coach Craig Berube sees it as good preparation for the postseason.

"Well, it doesn't hurt," he said. "It just shows you … we're going to St. Louis and we just played them, it's going to be another real competitive game. They're good teams for a reason. Good teams play with good structure and follow the system and they play extremely hard."

Team scope:

Flyers: The good news for forward Steve Downie is he has passed his concussion baseline testing and his neck is feeling better nine days after a hard collision with the Blues forward Patrik Berglund on the opening shift of the game on March 22.

Downie has missed the past four games with an upper-body injury, one he said Monday included whiplash. While he was a full participant in an optional practice Monday, he will not be in the lineup when the Flyers and Blues play again Tuesday.

While Downie says he feels good, he knows it will take a bit more time for him to return to game shape.

"It takes a couple of days to get back," he said. "I'm cleared and passed all the tests. I took a pretty weird shot to the neck in an awkward position. I had some neck issues but it's all cleared up right now. I'm healthy. It all comes down to getting your legs back and getting the timing back. A couple more skates and we'll see."

Blues: The Blues have gotten great seasons from their top line of Alexander Steen, T.J. Oshie and David Backes; the three rank 1-2-3 on the team in points.

However, Hitchcock knows that as well as his top line is playing, teams don't win the Stanley Cup with one line. That's why he's "probing" for someone to step up and provide secondary scoring.

"We're not looking for combinations that work; it's too late for that," he said. "We're trying to get people to understand when they play really well how it looks and what it feels like. We had some conversations with people [Monday], we'll have some more [Tuesday]. Try to get more people connected and involved in the finishing part of our game. I think all of us feel as happy as we are for the one line, you can't win with one line doing that. We're trying to get more people included.

"One of the reasons we're so high up in the standings as far as offense goes is that we've gotten great season from a lot of people other than Backes, Oshie and Steen and that's what given us that success. One of the guys is not there, [Vladimir] Tarasenko, so other guys, we're probing to see if we can get other guys to step up their game and fill out that void."

Who's hot: Flyers captain Claude Giroux finished March with six goals and 15 assists in 14 games. … Oshie was named NHL Third Star of the Week on Monday after totaling four goals and two assists in three games last week, including his first career hat trick March 27 against the Minnesota Wild.

Injury report: For the Flyers, Downie (upper body) is out and defenseman Kimmo Timonen (upper body) is questionable. … For the Blues, Tarasenko (hand) is out.

edit: There's also a very practical reason the Blues should be battling to the bitter end: I'd much prefer to get the #1 overall seed in the west and draw the 2nd Wild Card than get what appears to be the Wild. To say nothing of the need to stay in the #1 seed in the Central to avoid drawing Chicago or Colorado in the first round. That wouldn't be good...

What a freakin game. Lots of sloppy moments for both teams but the pace was intense and a hugely entertaining game for 1-0 shootout win.

Oshie is just disgusting on the shootouts. Miller played phenomenal, ton of great saves, bailed out some bad turnovers by the players in front of him, Emery on the other side was just as good. Great game. Glad we got the win out of it.

WaukeeBlues wrote:What a freakin game. Lots of sloppy moments for both teams but the pace was intense and a hugely entertaining game for 1-0 shootout win.

Oshie is just disgusting on the shootouts. Miller played phenomenal, ton of great saves, bailed out some bad turnovers by the players in front of him, Emery on the other side was just as good. Great game. Glad we got the win out of it.

Remember when the Miller trade went through and a lot of us said this was a win because 'he can steal games here and there that we shouldn't win?' Last night was one of those games. PHENOMENAL. Unbelievably performance.

Our first period needed to have Benny Hill music set to it, by the way. That was atrocious. But we got better as time went on. 2 big points there.

This isn't entirely surprising. Buffalo is a pushover team the boys should beat easily. Save Miller for the more important opponent in Colorado. What makes it a bit mindboggling though is that an arrangement like that would make a lot more sense if it was back to back nights.

glen a richter wrote:This isn't entirely surprising. Buffalo is a pushover team the boys should beat easily. Save Miller for the more important opponent in Colorado. What makes it a bit mindboggling though is that an arrangement like that would make a lot more sense if it was back to back nights.

Agreed. Just giving Miller all the rest he can get I guess. The implication being he's not going to be getting much of it (if any) here in a few weeks' time.

glen a richter wrote:This isn't entirely surprising. Buffalo is a pushover team the boys should beat easily. Save Miller for the more important opponent in Colorado. What makes it a bit mindboggling though is that an arrangement like that would make a lot more sense if it was back to back nights.

Agreed. Just giving Miller all the rest he can get I guess. The implication being he's not going to be getting much of it (if any) here in a few weeks' time.

The wangs beat the brooooins... Toes and 20c out for the rest of the regular season... Douch-sene out for a month... lets set up for the playoffs now